How to Manipulate a Manipulative Little Flirt
by spacegypsy1
Summary: Vala accidentally manages to manipulate Daniel, who finds his own method of manipulating his lovely little flirt! Oneshot. RATED T


How to Manipulate a Manipulative Little Flirt

spacegypsy1

Vala accidentally manages to manipulate Daniel, who finds his own method of manipulating his lovely little flirt! RATED T

A/N the phrase 'Manipulative little flirt' came from a reviewer of one of my stories – and from that this wild tale emerged. Rated Sizzling!

X X X X X

Grinning happily, Vala rushed into Daniel's office. "Hullo! Miss me?"

Smiling, Daniel looked up. "I sure did." He pointed across to her workspace where a pile of files waited.

Dejected, her grin faded. "Oh. Right. Well, I'm back." Vala sat and began to sort through the folders.

Daniel watched her a moment, then finally asked. "Did you have a good time?"

"Uh, huh." Was all she said, her back to him and her head down.

"Ah...good." When she didn't elaborate, his brows furrowed. "So, what'd you do?"

"Stuff." She snatched a pen out of the cup on the desk and began to make notes.

Returning to his work, Daniel wondered what could possibly be bothering her. Unable to concentrate as she continued on in silence, he looked up again. Head still down and totally silent, she organized her workspace. With a sigh, he went back to his work.

After about five minutes, Daniel's eyes lifted towards her. "So. I see you got a little sun."

"Yes."

"Hmm." Something was wrong, but Daniel couldn't put a finger on it. Once again, he tried to work. He waited another minute before he stopped, raised his eyes to her back, and tried again. "Well if you need some help, or have any questions..."

"No. Fine. I'm fine, I mean. No problem." By this time, Vala had the files littering her desk, and she'd begun to bang things around, mumbling irritably.

Scratching his head with a pencil, Daniel sighed, and starting scribbling notes. It wasn't fifteen seconds later that he threw the pencil on the desk and barked out, "Damn it, Vala, what's wrong!"

Her chair swiveled towards him, hair flying and she presented a well practiced fake shocked face complete with wide eyes and open mouth. "I don't know what you mean. Why would you think something is wrong? How could anything be wrong! I came in. I was happy. I said hello, miss me, and you said yes. And you pointed to my work. So I know what you want!" Her voice raised an octave. "Get off my back, Daniel!" Rocking her head to and fro, Vala sing songed, "Because. I. Am. Over. This!"

Daniel blinked rapidly, dismayed by her attitude. "I'm..I...I'm sorry. I was...you know...I was..."

"Yes? Yes? What?" Cocking her head to the side she pursed her lips, one eye closing with a twitch.

And now he was pissed! He chunked his glasses on the desk, doing that straight line mouth thing with eyes open wide and head coming forward. "Fine! I'm sorry I didn't jump up, run and hug you and lament my everlasting concern and how horrible my life was without you and how very much I missed you!" Taking a breath, he calmed down a bit. "I had...stuff to do, Vala. I was busy. And what do you mean 'you're over this'? What does that mean?"

Vala swung back around to her desk, turned on her computer, brought up her email and started working again. "You!" She barked out, fingers slamming computer keys. "I'm sick and tired of you! You're nothing but a big old grouch. You're no fun and you're rarely happy. I'm tired of you bringing me down!"

"What! I'm happy!"

Once again she swung around. "Really, Daniel? This is your happy? Gods forbid I would ever have to see you when you're sad!"

"What!" Incredulous, Daniel started to rise, then immediately sat back down, baffled. "Well...I...I...I had things to do. I have things on my mind." His tone held a note panic. He'd never seen her like this and it upset him. "I'm sorry. Really, Vala. I just have a lot on my mind."

"Ooohhh, poor, thirty thousand language holder and ace archeologist! You have things on your mind. Isn't that just awful! Thanks a lot for that, Daniel. Just be quiet. I have a lot to do, and I have 'things' on my mind. One of which is NOT you!" Pivoting back around she fussed with the folders.

Unable to respond, Daniel ducked his head, stared at his notes, and wondered what the hell was going on.

X X X X X

An hour later, not bothering to ask her to join him for lunch, and uncomfortable with the tension riddled silence, Daniel took himself off to the mess hall.

Going down the line he unconsciously choose three pieces of chocolate cake and a slice of Key Lime pie, a mound of mashed potatoes and a salad, with no dressing. Teal'c watched him curiously, as he followed along behind Daniel.

Grabbing a mug he filled it to the brim with coffee, started to walk off, changed his mind and filled another cup. Daniel looked over his shoulder at Teal'c. "What the hell is wrong with Vala!" Picking up his tray, he walked to a table.

Had he bothered to turn around again, he would have caught Teal'c smiling. The two sat across from each other. The Jaffa, looked at Daniel's plate and then to the man himself. "The hell that is wrong with ValaMalDoran is you, DanielJackson."

When Daniel looked across he found Teal'c with the usual expressionless face. "Me! What the hell did I do!"

Teal'c raised one brow.

"Right. I don't know why I do it. Why am I afraid to be nice to her?"

Again, that one brow went up, and Teal'c remained silent.

"Right...you're right, you're right." Daniel nodded, repeatedly. "I mean, I want to like her, but...I...I mean, I've got feelings. Sort of strange feelings. But I...we... I missed her. Really, I did. Why didn't I just tell her that? Why didn't I just hug her, and say glad to see you? Now she's steaming! She actually said I'm not any fun." Sighing heavily, Daniel dropped his head down. "I'm fun." Staring at his plate of odd food, he sighed again. "I don't know what else to say."

X X X X X

By nine that night, Daniel stopped searching for Vala. She'd been gone since he got back from lunch and wouldn't answer her phone. Not getting any work done, thinking about the whole mess, Daniel had given up and canvased the halls of the SGC.

He'd tried her quarters a few times – and was headed there again, just in case. For the last three hours he'd hunted everywhere. Dr. Lee had been in his lab, but hadn't seen her today. Sam's rarely used lab was empty, and didn't look as if anyone had been in there – all three times he looked. Vala hadn't been to the gym, and she wasn't at the basketball court with Mitchell and Teal'c – neither had seen her, either.

Standing outside the locker room – four times – produced no results...except for some strange and pitiful looks from the women going in and out.

Head down and hands in pockets he approached her door. _Crap, I always screw up. Why do I always screw up? I have to talk to her – we have to work this out - I've got to stop being so defensive - Stop being what she calls a grouch - Let her know I am happy-I do like her-and-I-do-want-to-be-friends-and-we-are-teammates-and-we-are-friends!_ _AND...I'll try harder to be kind to her. Yeah, that's it, that's what I'll say. That's what she wants to hear."_

The last few times he'd been here, he'd rapped the door with his knuckle. This time he tried a different approach. Banging on the door with the side of his clinched fist, Daniel bellowed out, "VALA! I know you're in there!"

Nothing happened. Damn her anyway. One last time, one last ditch effort, one more attempt...that was all he was willing to do. Again, he pounded the door, waited, and pounded again.

Finally giving up, he turned to leave, just as the door was snatched open and the glaring, hotheaded, barefoot woman snapped, "NOW WHAT! Why are you here and what do you want!"

"I want to apologize." He said softly. "I want to talk. I want to settle things between us. I don't want to be all grouchy, and I want to tell you...well, can I come in?" Daniel smiled a little nervously.

With a disgusted sigh, Vala waved him into the room. "Fine. Come in. Talk away. Apologize. Smooth it over, so we can start all over again, Daniel." She marched across the room, turned again, planted her butt against the dresser, folded her arms and waited.

Shuffling his feet, he started, a bit nervous. "You should know I'm fo...fond of you. I mean, we're friends Vala; we've been friends a long time. And I know I get...cross..."

Arms tightening, she looked away, "Daniel, I've never seen you treat your other friends the way you treat me."

"Well...well... that's not good. Is it?" Cautiously, he took a step forward. "But that's going to change. I promise you. I won't...I won't do that anymore. Our friendship is too... it means too much to me and I don't want to lose that. We're teammates. We work together. I mean...you and me. As weird as that is, we work together."

She snapped her head back around to him. "And why is that? Why is it weird? It may have seemedweird years ago...but that - that's all beer under the bridge."

Daniel smiled, tucking his head down. "Water."

"Stop! Correcting! Me!"

He raised his eyes, "I only want to help you to understand..."

"Stop. Stop." Vala's voice quivered as she looked down, and turned her face far away from him.

He realized she was more pissed now than this morning. Daniel took a step back, his eyes blinking in confusion and concern. "I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say! I don't know how to make this right. You tell me. Tell me, please. I came here to make sure we remain friends. I enjoy having you in my office. I like working with you. I really do."

She pursed her lips and cut her eyes towards him. "What you enjoy, Daniel, is having someone to bitch at. Someone to use when you want, and then toss aside. Someone to boss around and do your dirty work. You make every effort to patronize me, then turn around and yell at me about everything." Vala strained to control herself. She didn't want to cry. She wouldn't cry!

"Wait a minute!" He scoffed. "It's not all my fault!"

"Ha! It is your fault!" She fired back so angry she no longer worried about crying!

"Let's be honest here." His used his best condescending tone.

"Oh, the magnanimous, Dr. Jackson!"

"You know, Vala, you try hard to irritate me. You come up with every kind of premise just to annoy me...on purpose! You like to rile me and see me get all flustered!"

Vala stood straight, eyelids nearly closed in narrow slits, jaw tight and lips smashed together.

"Don't look at me like that." Daniel said, looking at her exactly the same way.

"Don't talk to me like that." Vala demanded, her hands slamming on her hips.

Daniel was about to lose the whole gist of this argument, he suddenly had no clue what they were arguing about. Unfortunately, his mouth got ahead of his thoughts, because he really didn't have a clue as to what she was thinking. "You're wrong; I know what you're thinking!"

"Oooohhhh... let's not go there, that thinking what's being thought thing. We don't want to think what the other is thinking because... THAT'S our problem!"

His arm shot out, his finger pointing inches from her nose. "Right! OUR problem! It's not just me!"

Eyes crossing as she watched his finger waggle in front of her, Vala said with as much confidence as she could rally..."Well, it's mostly you. I just react, but you start it!"

"Not likely. You're always nagging at me, and flirting with me."

"Flir...Flirting! I'll have you know, Mr. Dr. Daniel Jackson, I have not flirted with you in years...er months...because it's a complete waste of my time."

"Why would you flirt with me anyway? Huh? Answer that one, Ms. Princess Mal Doran!"

"Wellllll." Vala said, with her tongue literally in her cheek. "Because." She continued with a quick lick of her lips. "You're...you're flirtable." Vala gave him a sharp nod, as if to say, 'so there!'

"Huh?" His hands went in his pockets; he blinked and stared, mouth slightly ajar.

"Yes. Right. Flirtable." First Vala fluffed her hair, then she shook it, then blew a one-sided puff, to move it out of her face, before gathering it up and holding it in a one-handed ponytail. "Sometimes, Daniel, you are sooooo dense." She let her hair fall loose again. "You're an attractive man. Quite the looker, actually. Tall. Nice body...incredibly nice body, and on those very rare, and spectacular occasions, you have a smile that could melt a woman's heart...not to mention other more intimate places."

"See!" He practically danced, while a small red flush crept up his neck. "See! There! You did it again!"

"What? Did what!" Shaking her head to clear the confusion, Vala once again rested her six against the dresser.

"Flirting!"

"That's what we're talking about." Bracing her hands behind her on the dresser, she tilted her body forward, giving him a knowing wink.

"Oh. Okaaaay." He wasn't sure that made sense.

"Good." Vala pushed away from the furniture, and ambled over to the bed, shucking her jacket. "I'm exhausted from all this nonsense. I'm going to bed." She yawned, "let's talk more tomorrow, it's been very enlightening, but now I need to sleep."

"I'm not going anywhere. We're settling this now. Tonight."

"Oh, are we? Fine." She whipped off her black tank top, revealing a sexy little chemise, unbuttoned her pants and shimmied out of them, leaving on the skimpy panties, threw the covers back and crawled on the bed on all fours.

Daniel watched in horror.

Vala fluffed her pillows very slowly, all the while her six was directly in his line of sight. Yawning again, she flopped over on her side and curled up.

"Son of a bitch!" He mumbled.

"Leave or stay. Talk or curse. I don't care."

"What are you doing!"

"Going to sleep," she replied casually.

"In THAT!"

Lifting her head, elbow on the bed and hand supporting her face, Vala grinned. "What's wrong with this?"

"It's...it's...barely there, are you going to sleep like that? You're not going to put on some pajamas, or co...co...covers?"

"Yes. And no. Usually, Daniel, I sleep naked, but if I'd stripped bare, you would have accused me of flirting with you. Or use some other one of your forty thousand words in one of your bazillion languages to berate me. Now... if you leave I'll take this off. Stay and I'll leave it on. Talk, whatever." She rolled over on her stomach, snuggling the pillow close.

Completely flustered, Daniel's gaze was glued to her buttocks, where the rise of her bum peeked out from her panties. "You...er...don't sleep like that when we're on missions." For a man schooled in handling difficult situations, Daniel was blathering gibberish.

"No. I sleep in those civvie-do's, because that's the rules, and I always try to follow the rules." Punching her pillow, Vala turned to her side. "Whereas you, take almost everything off but your boy bottoms, with your package right there in my face."

"Wha...what!"

"You heard me! Showing off your lovely shiny, muscled chest and that little curve to your belly, and those sinew lines going down into your low riding, pantie thingies that form... you know, fits right there."

"This is insane!"

"Only to you, Daniel, only to you. Are you finished, now?"

He just stood there with a gapping mouth.

Vala sighed, sat up and fluffed her hair. "Okay. Keep going. I can't sleep now." She patted the bed beside her. "Do you not want to be friends? Is that what this is all about?"

"No! I mean, yes, I want to be friends." He leaned the side of his hip against the dresser. "I figured if we talked it out...we could work it out. I promise I could be a better friend."

She collapsed back onto the pillow. "I don't think so. I don't see you changing. You'll always be griping at me. It's what you do. I'll always be annoying you, it's what I do. We got off on the wrong leg in the beginning. This is where we are, and probably where we will always be."

He stopped himself from correcting her. "No. I don't want that."

"What do you want?"

"I want something more." He moved, coming closer to the bed.

"Could you elaborate, Dr. Jackson?"

"A close friendship, like we should have."

"Really?"

"Yes, why do you think I'm here?"

"I don't know." Vala stuck her legs under the cover, pulled them to her waist and patted the bed again. "Come sit." Immediately, he took a few steps back and Vala laughed. "Well, there you go."

"Oh," he said, realizing what he'd done. Cautiously, Daniel approached the bed. Finally, he sat on the very edge, his back to her.

"Not so bad, eh?"

"No, no, I'm fine." Slowly, he folded one leg up on the bed and scooted back against the headboard, stuffing the extra pillow behind his back.

After a long moment of silence Daniel reached and unlaced his boots, pulled them and his socks off, dropped them on the floor, and folded his legs up.

Vala stretched out, snuggling deeper under the covers. "Now, I'm ready to listen, you know, so we can work this out. We have to get up very early, so make it quick. We're due for an early pre-mission briefing and we all know I'm very shallow and need my beauty sleep."

He stared straight ahead. "I don't know what I want to say, Vala."

"Alright. I'll take a little nap while you decide."

"Okay," He crossed his arms over his chest leaning his head back. "I'll wake you up when I'm ready." He closed his eyes - he had some things to contemplate. "One," he mumbled unaware he was speaking out loud. "Vala's sexy state of dress could be an issue. Two, Vala's proximity in said sexy state of dress. Three, my feelings for her. Four...what could I do to fix this mess, show her how I care?"

Rolling his head on the headboard, he continued. "I should have hugged her. I did miss her. Maybe I should hug her now? That could create a big issue...a reaction. That could cause problems. I really do want to have sex with Vala. Okay, maybe not just sex. I don't want just sex. I'm not a just sex kind of guy. Er... problem number one, sex. Problem number two, love making. Problem number three...making love indicates strong feelings and strong feelings indicate continued relationship, indicating long term, and long term indicates more issues." He cleared his throat completely unaware of Vala watching him with a wicked smile.

"Okay, issues...issue number one, is she capable of a long term relationship...of course she is. Am I capable of a long term relationship...sure I am. But am I capable of a long term relationship with Vala? I better be, because there's nobody else I've been interested in since that manipulative little flirt first laid those man-eater lips on me." Daniel opened his eyes and darted a quick look in her direction, finding her sound asleep. Removing his jacket, he tossed it across the room. He went back to contemplating, once again relaxing against the headboard and mumbling to himself.

"That brings me to the next set of questions. Will she always be a manipulative little flirt, will she be my manipulative little flirt, or, will there be others? I can't deal with that." Suddenly, he turned, catching Vala staring at him with a grin unparalleled to any she'd ever had, and he realized he'd said everything out loud!

Without a second thought, Daniel pulled his T-shirt over his head, loosened his belt, undid his pants, slipped them off, crawled under the covers, lying flat on his back, hands under his head, and stared at the ceiling. "I'm done. No more talking."

Vala squealed, leapt across the bed and landed straddled across his hips. "Finally!" She said, tossing her wild hair out of her face.

Daniel laughed, his hands going to her hips. "You manipulative little flirt!"

"It wasn't my fault...well, not intentionally. And I promise, darling, I will never flirt with anyone but you."

"You better not!"

"I love you, Daniel." She said with a mischievous smile.

"I love you, too, Vala."

~END


End file.
